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From the time of the news release (23:00 on 07/21) to 2022/07/22, the program code of this site will be updated. Various problems may be encountered, including but not limited to program errors, the website cannot be opened, and the tracker cannot be linked. However, these phenomena are temporary, please be aware

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You may have noticed that the right-margin below your profile name and credits used to always say "Connected: xx up, xx down". For years this would always say "Connected" no matter if your torrent port was forwarded correctly or not. Well, some sysops, droz in particular, decided to make the site a better place (and droz has certainly put in the work to get things up to a modern platform). In the many bugs he's squashed, he also fixed the "always connected" bug. Basically, if it says "Not Connected" within the margin that shows your current number of uploads and downloads, it means the tracker sees that your torrent port is closed. To fix this, you need to configure port forwarding for your network connection to your torrent client. You can test if your port is forwarded by using any of the numerous online port scanning tools by inputting your IP and Port that would lead to your torrent client. For example, if your torrent client listens on port 485682 then use that as the port number. What are the drawbacks of being Not Connected? Here are the 4 possible combinations within a peer-to-peer connection: Downloader, closed port ---> Seeder, closed port: Tough luck! No data is transferred between these two individuals. Downloader, closed port ---> Seeder, open port: Instant! Data begins to instantly transfer from seeder to downloader. Downloader, open port ---> Seeder, closed port: Bummer. Need to wait until Seed sees and connects back to you. Data transfer is started up to 30min (or tracker refresh time) later. Downloader, open port ---> Seeder, open port: Instant! in either direction As you can see, data will only transfer between a seeder and a leecher if and only if at least one peer is connectable (open port). Peer-to-Peer networking requires this basic fundamental. We understand certain connections are out of your control. Just understand that you are the one who suffers the consequences with poor performance if you are Not Connected. Every network configuration is unique for each user. We can only help so much. Please click this link to view the wiki page before joining IRC #help If you have a VPN, you need to check with your provider to see if they support it, and how to setup port forwarding. It is different for each provider. If your ISP uses a CGNAT then port forwarding won't be possible without using a VPN that supports it. Thanks, PreToMe

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Due to the network failure some time ago, the site staff hastened to investigate, and it has now returned to normal. Please do not use ladders, VPS, proxies, etc. when entering the station. You can access it directly, and the website opening speed has been significantly improved. Thank you, the webmaster has been promoted to the king

Greetings Pornbay Users, The admin team here at Pornbay have deliberated and come to a consensus that the games category has been, is currently, and will continue to be a problem child on the site. With that agreement, it has been our decision to permanently disable to games category for new uploads going forward. Current torrents will be allowed to age out naturally, but no new games will be allowed. The Forbidden List has been updated to include the following: Forbidden List: Games, or executable files: - Any type of executable files are not permitted on Pornbay.org This includes games, self-extracting archives, or any other executable program. Additionally the Upload Rules have been modified to read as follows: Upload Rules: The following items should NOT be included in your torrents: 1) Spam or Spam Links - PB has a Zero Tolerance policy for spam and spam links. 2) Password Protected Archives (Even if you include a .txt file with the password) 3) Executable files of any type (.exe, self-extracting archives, screensavers) 4) Archived Torrents Exceptions: .iso or .bin/.cue disc images 200+ Image Collection Torrents may be archived. The torrent must contain contact sheets for all of the images, and at least 10 full sized representative images. This removes any exceptions to the rules for executable files or game archives. This means that games and executable uploads will be treated like any other Forbidden List content, with the associated warnings and/or bans that would occur for other violations of the list. We're sad that this had to occur, but situations require us to adapt and change to protect the users and the site from malicious actors. We appreciate your understanding in this matter. Thank you, Cyber-Surfer on behalf of the Pornbay Admin Team

Highfliers like Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Dogecoin (DOGE) have really drawn retail interest into the digital currency arena. Although Bitcoin and Ethereum account for a sizable portion of this nominal increase in crypto market value over the past two years, its highfliers like Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Dogecoin (DOGE) have really drawn retail interest into the digital currency arena. Bitcoin has not only been a trendsetter, ushering in a wave of cryptocurrencies built on a decentralized peer-to-peer network but has also become the de facto standard for cryptocurrencies. Because it isn’t the only cryptocurrency available, it is essential to look into others and find out which ones besides Bitcoin are doing well. Dogecoin (DOGE), seen by some as the original “memecoin,” caused a stir in 2021 as its price skyrocketed. The coin, which uses an image of the Shiba Inu as its avatar, is accepted as a form of payment by some major companies. Shiba Inu is also on a path to reinvent itself from a mere meme coin. The Shiba Inu ecosystem has launched a decentralized exchange (DEX) and a non-fungible token (NFT) incubator in recent months in a bid to give the SHIB token much-needed utility. Dogecoin is better than Bitcoin Dogecoin is already beating Bitcoin in some ways. In others, the digital coin with the adorable dog mascot is miles and miles behind the largest and oldest cryptocurrency. Moreover, the technical platforms are quite similar since Doge is a distant descendant of the Bitcoin system — with some tweaks along the way. After coasting along with minor price gains over several years, Dogecoin entered the spotlight during the social media whirlwind of early 2021. Dogecoin was one of the standout performers in the cryptocurrency market, peaking in May before gradually descending in the following months. However, there are still numerous reasons to be optimistic about Dogecoin’s prospects, with the developers keen to implement additional use-cases to boost the coin’s value proposition. At the end of the day, these two cryptocurrencies have a lot of shared DNA and history but are very different when it comes to real-world utility. If anything, Dogecoin could challenge Litecoin or Ripple as an efficient money-transfer platform, but even that ambition seems to fall short when you consider Dogecoin’s incoming inflation and its lighter focus on data security. The Rise of Shiba Inu In a typical year, the top-performing publicly listed stock that isn’t a microcap is probably going to gain 2,000%, or perhaps a bit more. Last year, Shiba Inu delivered what may go down as the single greatest one-year gain we’ll ever see from an investable asset. The self-proclaimed ‘Dogecoin-killer’ has proven itself to be of much more importance, despite harsh criticism and negative investor analysis. The Shiba Inu coin produced massive profits in 2021 and astonished the crypto market with skyrocketing profits. The most obvious reason SHIB was unstoppable in 2021, was due to its increased visibility. As the token rose the ranks in popularity and market capitalization, so did its market liquidity and investor community. Shiba Inu celebrated its growing community in 2021 as it crossed 1 million. In fact, it became the most-searched cryptocurrency in 2021, overtaking Bitcoin and some other major cryptocurrencies. The launch of decentralized exchange ShibaSwap in July also helped its cause. Google Search Shows ‘Lack of Interest’ in Bitcoin Currently, it seems that the demand for Bitcoin from retail investors has declined in the past several months, at least according to data from Google Trends. The number of queries on the world’s largest search engine typically shows the behavior of smaller investors, which tend to arrive at the scene amid the most substantial bull runs. This was the case back in late 2017 when BTC spiked to its then-ATH at roughly US$20,000.

He has signed a bill that adds to a previous prohibition against cryptocurrency payments in the country. Russian President Vladimir Putin today signed into law a national ban on using digital assets for payments. The action comes after the Russian government and central bank have long debated what to do about cryptocurrency. Back in January, the Bank of Russia proposed an outright ban on crypto—for payments or investments. Today's law doesn't go quite that far. In February, Russia's Finance Ministry submitted a draft of cryptocurrency regulations to the government which, like the law enacted today, allows for investing in digital assets like Bitcoin or Ethereum, but not using them to buy things. The law, as published on the Russian parliament website and translated by Google Translate, reads: “It is prohibited to transfer or accept digital financial assets as a consideration for transferred goods, performed works, rendered services, as well as in any other way that allows one to assume payment for goods (works, services) by a digital financial asset, except as otherwise provided by federal laws.” Russia has been in the crypto spotlight since the country invaded Ukraine. As a result, big crypto companies, like Binance and Coinbase, said that they will comply with U.S. or E.U. laws on limiting Russians using exchanges. Crypto legislation in Russia is complicated: the country's central bank previously called for a ban on Bitcoin mining and crypto transactions, but earlier this year, the country’s Finance Ministry said it would be “necessary to allow” cryptocurrency technology to develop. President Putin expressed enthusiasm for Bitcoin mining in January, when he said that Russia had “certain competitive advantages” including a “surplus of electricity and well-trained personnel available in the country” to mine the currency. Bitcoin closes the week down about 5 percent to $20,790.64, Ethereum holding at $1,231.54, down less than a percent over 7 days, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

If crypto transactions remain transparent on the blockchain, how hard is it to hide when digital currencies are traded in not-so-legal ways? Well, up to this point, how hard is it to wash your crypto? According to a new report, online criminals are the main demographic using services that make crypto transactions less traceable. Mixers, also known as tumblers, are a tool that collects funds distributed by multiple users and then jumbles them before asking each user to withdraw the original amount deposited minus a service fee. A new report from the cryptanalysis company chain analysis The report, released Friday, shows that the vast majority of funds sent to Mixer came from “illegal addresses.” Close to 10% of all funds sent to Mixer came from these suspected cybercriminals, compared to just under 0.3% Mixer usage across various addresses such as P2P exchanges and gambling platforms. And this year it’s gotten even worse. These illicit addresses accounted for 23% of all funds sent to Mixer in 2022. These illicit funds came from sources like scams, stolen funds, scam shops and more. The report’s authors note that many of these services do not require much customer identification. Several sanctioned entities like that Lazarus groupa North Korean-affiliated crew allegedly responsible for the Axie Infinity hack worth $625 million, accounted for 30% of all sanctioned companies sending funds to Mixer this year. The Russian dark web marketplace Hydra accounted for over 50% of funds sent to Mixer. Hydra is known for its involvement in crypto thefts, ransomware, and more. The report found that cybercriminals linked to North Korea used shufflers to attempt to disguise the most funds compared to any other group. G/O Media may receive a commission Of course, not all people using mixers inherently commit criminal activities, especially since transactions on the blockchain are public and after much effort understandable. People trying to hide theirs Transactions by oppressive governments might find the additional privacy offered by anonymous mixers useful. It’s also important to note that blenders don’t work as well for criminals who Try to launder larger pots of money, as some of the crypto a user puts in a blender, if it’s more than other users, is bound to be some of the coins they started with. However, as Chainalysis notes, “data shows that mixers currently pose a significant money laundering risk, with 25% of funds coming from illegal addresses, and that cybercriminals linked to hostile governments are benefiting.” There are different types of blenders, but long story short, those using these services for illegal purposes prefer those that aren’t centralized enough to record who put their coins in and who took them out. Mixers themselves are considered “money transmitters” by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the US agency that prosecutes financial crimes for the Treasury Department. The report indicates that some mixer services have been called out for illegal activities. Federal prosecutors have indicted Bitcoin Fog money laundering for the alleged operation of an unlicensed broadcasting service on the dark web. “We are not aware of any blender currently following any rules regarding [Know Your Customer] Processes, verification of sources of funds and other basic customer identification and due diligence requirements that [money service businesses] are subject to in most jurisdictions,” the report said. Despite the remaining crypto price much deeper Since its peak in mid-2021, the rate of crypto crime has only increased. Web3 security firm CertiK’s second-quarter report, released July 7, showed that the crypto scene lost over $2 billion from April to June, with $870 million of that hit attributable to hacks and exploits. The loss in the first half of the year is more than all of 2021 combined. The security report notes that two of the most common attacks are flashloans and phishing scams mainly carried out on platforms like discord or telegramthe Don’t have a Twitter-like “verified account” system in place. And what does that mean for the rest of the year? CertiK’s report predicted a 223% year-over-year increase in funds lost to attacks. We’re all looking forward to that.

South Africa’s Reserve Bank will regulate cryptocurrencies as financial assets, and new laws are expected over the next 12 months. The South African Reserve Bank is set to introduce regulations next year that will see cryptocurrencies classed and treated as financial assets to balance investor protection and innovation. Cryptocurrency use in South Africa is in a healthy space, with around 13% of the population estimated to own some form of cryptocurrency, according to research from global exchange Luno. With more than six million people in the country having cryptocurrency exposure, regulation of the space has long been a talking point. Companies or individuals looking to provide advice or intermediary services involving cryptocurrencies are currently required to be recognized as financial services providers. This involves meeting a number of checkboxes to comply with global guidelines set out by the Financial Action Task Force. South Africa’s National Treasury budget review published in February 2022 formally introduced the move to declare cryptocurrencies as financial products. The state also plans to enhance the monitoring and reporting of cryptocurrency transactions to comply with exchange regulations in the country. South African Reserve Bank deputy governor Kuben Chetty has now confirmed that new legislation will be introduced in the next 12 months, speaking in an online series hosted by local investment firm PSG on Tuesday. This will see cryptocurrencies fall under the scope of the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA). This is significant, as it will allow the sector to be monitored for money laundering, tax evasion and terrorism financing, which has been a heavily debated byproduct of the decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies and blockchains. Related: South Africa finishes technical PoC for wholesale CBDC settlement system Chetty highlighted the road that the SARB will take over the next 12 months to introduce this new regulatory environment. Firstly, it will declare cryptocurrencies as a financial product which allows their listing as a schedule under the Financial Intelligence Centre act. Following that, a regulatory framework will be developed for exchanges which will include certain Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements as well as the need to meet tax and exchange control laws. Exchanges will also be expected to issue a ‘health warning’ to highlight the risk of losing money. Chetty noted that the SARB's attitude toward the sector has changed significantly over the past decade. Some five years ago the institution thought there was no need for any regulatory oversight, but a gradual shift in perception to define cryptocurrencies as financial assets has changed that stance: “By all definitions, it’s [cryptocurrencies] not a currency, it’s an asset. It’s something that is tradable, it’s something that is created. Some have backing, others do not. Some may have a genuine underpinning, real economic activity.” The deputy governor insisted that the SARB did not regard cryptocurrencies as a form of currency, given the perceived inability for everyday retail use and the associated volatility. Chetty agreed that continued interest in the space creates a need to regulate the sector and facilitate its merge with mainstream finance “in a way that balances the excitement and hype with the investor protection required.” The SARB also continues to explore the possible introduction of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), having recently completed a technical proof-of-concept in April 2022. The second stage of Project Khokha involved using a blockchain-based system for clearing, trading and settlement with a handful of banks that form part of the Intergovernmental Fintech Working Group (IFWG).

Google Delists Hundreds of Pirate Bay Domains From UK Search Results Google began to delist pirate sites from local search results last year. The search engine voluntarily complies with court orders targeted at third-party Internet providers. This is also true in the UK, where The Pirate Bay initially remained unblocked. A recent wave of removal requests corrected this initial oversight and hundreds of Pirate Bay domains have since been removed. google pirate bayLast year, we noticed that Google had delisted several popular pirate sites from its search results in some countries. In the Netherlands, for example, The Pirate Bay and many of its mirrors and proxies were delisted by Google in response to a notice sent by local anti-piracy group BREIN. Later, we learned that similar requests were being sent to Google by movie company representatives in other countries. In response, Google removed thousands of URLs from its search engine in countries such as France, Norway, and the UK. In all cases, the domains were already blocked by ISPs following a court order. Google’s Blocking Reversal Google’s decision to voluntarily take action is noteworthy. The company apparently removed thousands of ‘pirate site’ domain names without being named in a lawsuit and despite earlier objections to this type of whole-site blocking, of which it doubted the efficacy. The search engine has clearly changed its views, much to the delight of rightsholders. That said, Google still needs a nudge to spring into action. In the UK, for example, The Pirate Bay remained in Google’s search engine while hundreds of smaller sites were delisted. Initially, it wasn’t clear why The Pirate Bay remained unblocked but, in hindsight, the explanation appears to be quite straightforward. The blocking notices that were sent to Google came from the UK law firm Wiggins, which works for the movie industry. The Pirate Bay blocking order, however, was obtained by the music groups BPI and PPL. Apparently, these groups hadn’t sprung into action yet. BPI/PPL Ask Google to Delist Pirate Bay URLs In recent weeks the UK music groups got on the bandwagon. The first request, sent by BPI and PPL, asked Google to delist the main Thepiratebay.org URL from its search results and the company swiftly complied. Since then, several other requests have come in, targeting hundreds of Pirate Bay proxies. For example, earlier this month a BPI/PPL notice identified 486 additional blocking targets, although half of these appear to be duplicated. A week earlier, a similar notice targeted 73 ‘Pirate Bay’ URLs. As a result of these actions, it’s now harder to find Pirate Bay proxies through Google. And indeed, a simple search for The Pirate Bay in the UK now comes with a notice at the bottom of the results, indicating that several URLs were removed in response to a legal request. The BPI informs us that it already asked Google to delist The Pirate Bay when the first blocking order was obtained in 2012. At the time, Google declined to do so but the search engine eventually changed its tune. “Things have moved on a bit since then and Google is now prepared to delist sites which are the subject of Court Orders,” a BPI spokesperson informed us. “It’s been a long time coming, and clearly not everyone uses Google to find infringing sites, but we are pleased that the biggest search engine in the world is now taking these steps, because the less visibility an illegal site has, the less it will be accessed.” More Targets? By now, it’s clear that the music industry groups have discovered their new power. However, as far as we can see their actions have been limited to The Pirate Bay. That’s noteworthy, as the music industry groups also obtained ISP blocking orders against many other sites. The popular torrent sites 1337x, LimeTorrents and TorrentDownloads remain accessible through Google, despite a BPI blocking order. The same is true for the music download portal NewAlbumReleases and cyberlocker Nitroflare. Even the blocking order for popular YouTube download tools such as Flvto.biz, 2Conv.com, 2Convert.net, and mp3.studio has yet to reach Google. This, despite the fact that these sites are seen as the largest piracy threat to the industry. It’s not clear why these other sites haven’t been reported but perhaps they will be targeted at a later stage. TorrentFreak asked BPI if that’s the case but, at the time of publication, we have yet to hear back.

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Behind Voyager’s Fall: Crypto Broker Acted Like a Bank, Went Bankrupt In an industry where counterparties are tightly bound together by a weave of debt and leverage, dominoes can fall fast and hard. Voyager Digital CEO Steve Ehrlich giving a thumbs up at Bitcoin Miami in April of 2022 (Danny Nelson/CoinDesk) At its height, Voyager Digital boasted 3.5 million users (roughly what Coinbase boasted in 2015) and $5.9 billion in assets, comparable to a small regional bank or respectable wealth management firm. Ninety-seven percent of Voyager’s clients stored less than $10,000 on the platform, indicating a broad base of individual investors. It was a crypto lending and trading powerhouse – one of the few digital asset brokerages listed on stock markets anywhere in the world (albeit in Canada rather than the U.S., its home country). Voyager’s future, until recently, looked bright. Leadership seemed barely able to conceive of a bear market, much less its consequences. Speaking in 2021, CEO Steve Ehrlich said that “I think the market looks completely different today from what it looked like in 2017. We all remember 2017.” As it turns out, 2021 was actually a lot like 2017 – both were quickly followed by a brutal crypto market crash. Ehrlich’s sunny optimism has yielded a rotten harvest. The Jersey City, N.J.-based company is now known to have made immense unsecured loans to Three Arrows Capital (3AC). That failed hedge fund now appears to have defaulted on all of its obligations, and its founders are reportedly fugitives. That alone was apparently a mortal wound. On July 1, Voyager froze customer funds. Just days later, it filed for bankruptcy protection in New York. Voyager is in a bleak situation. “The Debtors are facing a short-term ‘run on the bank,’” according to a statement Ehrlich filed alongside bankruptcy papers. But, also according to Ehrlich (who did not respond to a request for comment for this story), Voyager has a brighter future: “Debtors have a viable business and a plan for the future.” (Under Chapter 11, the company is seeking to reorganize rather than liquidate.) So how did a once mighty and well-regarded crypto lending outfit get here? Short version: Voyager was pretty good at attracting deposits. When it came to lending that money out … not so much. Why did Voyager Digital fail? In the company’s chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, Ehrlich gave a rare public play-by-play of a crypto lender’s mistakes. It’s a story that, at least by Ehrlich’s telling, begins with the collapse of the Terra blockchain ecosystem and the ensuing contagion. In an industry where counterparties are tightly bound together by a weave of debt and leverage, dominoes can fall fast and hard. Voyager is casting itself as a victim of the cryptopocalypse, undone not by any direct exposure to the likes of Terra’s UST stablecoin and LUNA token, but merely through unlucky business partners. Voyager said it quickly moved to hedge its risk as crypto winter began in early 2022, in part by reducing loans and mitigating counterparty risk. All the better to protect against Terra’s spectacular May collapse. This effort was successful “in most instances.” Until it wasn’t. Things turned sour in June. Three Arrows Capital, a widely respected Singapore-based hedge fund with loans across the industry and bets across the space, “was in jeopardy” of failing to pay up. Its own “massive” bets on LUNA had imploded into a black hole of losses. Three Arrows was also underwater on positions in Lido staked ether (stETH) and the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. (Grayscale is owned by Digital Currency Group, which also owns CoinDesk.) Notably, Ehrlich does not mention either of these in his bankruptcy narrative, possibly reflecting a troubling lack of insight into the operations of a company to which he offered a $650 million unsecured loan. Either way, Three Arrows was down bad across the board. It was also one of Voyager’s single largest lending customers. What business was Voyager actually in? To understand Voyager’s collapse, you first have to understand what its business actually was. To depositors, it looked an awful lot like a bank with a few twists. Up front, users deposited cryptocurrency rather than government fiat. Around the back, while Citibank or the teachers’ credit union might generate revenue by turning deposits into home loans, Voyager was engaged in (it turns out) much riskier lending. Voyager is one of several retail-facing crypto institutions that generate interest on deposits by loaning crypto assets out to traders and institutions. Investment firms and hedge funds like Three Arrows Capital rely on these loans to make big trades. They take in capital from lenders, long or short a cornucopia of (risky) assets, invest in early-stage companies – and if all goes well, earn massive returns relatively quickly. Some of these returns funnel back to their lending partners as interest payments. In turn, those partners, lenders like Voyager, pass a slice of the interest to customers. The process creating that chain of events that led to these yield payments is almost irrelevant – and certainly not transparent – to depositors. All they see is a nice payout in their accounts. Until, that is, something goes wrong. When asset prices tumble or a counterparty defaults on a massive loan, the lenders are left with gaping holes in their balance sheets. The systemic downturn has blown up not just Voyager but also Celsius and Babel Finance, all of which have frozen withdrawals and most of which now appear insolvent. That has had real ramifications for real people, many of whom came to Voyager and its ilk with modest savings, in search of higher yield. What they may be realizing too late is that these crypto lenders are not the same as banks, and it’s unclear exactly how or if their deposits will be recovered. Voyager, for its part, is now under regulatory scrutiny for allegedly misrepresenting insurance on customer deposits. Among crypto lenders, Voyager is also notable because it's the first to take the bankruptcy route. As part of that process, Ehrlich has filed a lengthy statement detailing the company’s challenges. It provides an unvarnished glimpse into the same shaky foundations of all the crypto lenders. How it ended One of those details is the rates paid by borrowers. According to Ehrlich’s statement, Alameda Research would pay up to 11.5%, Three Arrows Capital 10% and Genesis 13.5%. (Genesis is owned by Digital Currency Group, which also owns CoinDesk.) Three Arrows was by far the biggest counterparty, with over $650 million borrowed. This “integral part of the business” is how the cash cow mooed. Rate table from CEO Steve Ehrlich's filing in the Voyager Digital bankruptcy proceeding. (Voyager Digital) (Steve Ehrlich/Voyager Digital) Note also 3AC’s low interest rate relative to other borrowers. That would seem to reflect above-average faith in the fund, and multiple lenders did make generous loans to Three Arrows co-founders Kyle Davies and Su Zhu on friendly terms. Voyager stands out, though, for extending such a huge loan without requiring collateral from Three Arrows. That gesture of trust, as we’ve since learned, was woefully misplaced. But the lending business rallied like no other during the pandemic, when speculative mania from retail traders pushed everything from GameStop stock to dogecoin into silly season. From early 2020 to early 2022, the Voyager platform ballooned from 120,000 to 3.5 million users. Voyager benefited from low U.S. dollar interest rates and skyrocketing enthusiasm for the world’s hippest, hottest, most boom-and-bust prone risk-on asset. But as bubbles do, crypto-mania hit its limit in late 2021, and assets started hemorrhaging value. The war in Ukraine, rising inflation and rate hikes from the U.S. Federal Reserve further shook crypto’s up-only drumbeat. Between November of 2021 and April of 2022, crypto asset prices slumped by roughly 33% across the board. Then the wild card reared up. Starting in early May, the UST stablecoin began a “death spiral” that wiped billions of dollars in wealth from the global crypto economy. Within days, a blockchain that Ehrlich claims was “widely viewed as a project with significant promise” and had major backing from investors of all stripes, had gone all but kaput. Meanwhile, two less dramatic but similarly threatening sinkholes were opening. Starting in early 2021, the Greyscale Bitcoin Trust began trading at a significant discount to the underlying bitcoins. And stETH, effectively a promissory note for ETH on the upcoming Ethereum 2.0 system, began trading at a discount to ETH. Both of these developments meant investors had to take big losses if they wanted to turn positions in those assets into ready cash. One big holder of both GBTC and stETH was, you guessed it, Three Arrows Capital. 3AC’s loss of its entire $200 million initial stake in LUNA might not have been fatal if it hadn’t already been underwater on those other positions. But in any event, Three Arrows, for years one of the most respected trading firms in crypto, did the unthinkable: It simply disappeared. Voyager had previously loaned $350 million in the stablecoin USDC and 15,250 bitcoins to Three Arrows. As the market continued to slide, Voyager made multiple demands for repayment in late June. But Three Arrows did not respond and was also ghosting other partners. $650 million of Voyager funds, effectively including a lot of customer deposits, was simply gone. The dominoes were falling. Terra’s downfall led to Three Arrows’ default led to Voyager’s reckoning. This wasn’t some normal crypto winter. Contagion season had arrived. To stop the bleeding, Voyager in mid-June brokered a nearly $500 million loan facility with Alameda intended to support the company’s short-term finances. It was at best a Band-Aid, a “partial solution” to contagion-fueled liquidity issues exacerbated by the greater crypto market rout. Making matters worse, Celsius, another crypto lending giant, was falling apart at the same time. Celsius froze customer withdrawals on June 12, shaking broader confidence in lenders and the markets and prompting Voyager’s own clients to run for safety. Lowering daily withdrawal limits from $25,000 to $10,000 per day on June 23 was meant to stop the race to the exit and buy Voyager time. But it wasn’t enough in the face of what Ehrlich describes as “an influx of customer withdrawals” that threatened “the Company’s ability to serve customers who remained on its platform.” As the market continued to fall, Voyager’s situation grew ever bleaker. On July 1, it froze all customer withdrawals and trading to “avoid irreparable damage to the Debtors’ business and ensure that its trading platform operated smoothly for all customers.” (Not being able to withdraw, it must be noted, seems in itself like less than smooth operation.) Voyager went into what might be described as panic mode. By mid-June, it retained legal counsel; a consultancy joined the fray by month’s close. The Canada-listed public company needed “potential strategic solutions” to its looming liquidity crisis – and it needed them fast. That could include selling businesses or raising capital. Some temporary breathing room came in the form of a June 20 unsecured loan facility worth roughly $500 million from trading powerhouse Alameda Research. Alameda founder Sam Bankman-Fried (also the CEO of the FTX exchange) has become crypto’s backstopper-in-chief during the market rout. Voyager initially borrowed $75 million, to be (theoretically) paid back by late 2024. Meanwhile, the investment bankers reached out to “60 potential financial and strategic partners” – that is, potential saviors – according to Ehrlich. They got 22 leads toward a rescue deal, but only one proposal emerged. The offer was too much of a lowball for Voyager to stomach. No other options appeared. “It became clear that a potential strategic transaction would only emerge after the Company petitioned for chapter 11 relief,” Ehrlich states. Voyager tells the court it plans to mount a comeback. A Chapter 11 restructuring would allow Voyager to shed debt and restructure itself, rather than having to liquidate its assets. “Voyager will move as swiftly as possible through these cases to maximize the value of its business and allow customers to fully use the Company’s platform,” Ehrlich writes. A “robust marketing process” is already underway to signal Voyager cannot be counted out. That marketing effort will need to be very robust indeed, since both broader conditions and some of Voyager’s own actions have profoundly undermined whatever public trust it enjoyed. A restructuring plan announced Monday would compensate users for missing crypto with shares of Voyager equity and Voyager tokens (whatever those are). That’s unlikely to leave users particularly happy, though it might give them a backdoor incentive to continue using the crippled service.

The FSB seems more concerned with the crypto market given its recent turmoil and the “increasing interconnectedness with the traditional financial system.” The FSB seems more concerned with the crypto market given its recent turmoil and the “increasing interconnectedness with the traditional financial system.” The Financial Stability Board (FSB), a global financial regulator including all G20 countries, is preparing to propose international regulations for cryptocurrencies and stablecoins in October. The FSB on Monday issued a statement on the international regulation and supervision of crypto asset activities, announcing a major crypto regulation effort. The watchdog is planning to report to the G20 finance minister and central bank governors in October 2022 on regulatory and supervisory approaches to stablecoins and other crypto assets. By that time, the FSB targets a public consultation report on the review of recommendations, including “how existing frameworks may be extended to close gaps and implement the high-level recommendations.” The G20 authority also plans to submit another public consultation report that proposes recommendations for promoting global consistency of regulatory and supervisory approaches to other crypto-assets. “These combined efforts of the FSB and the international standard setting bodies are aimed at minimizing the risk of fragmentation and regulatory arbitrage,” the FSB noted. According to the statement, the FSB’s growing interest in crypto regulations came due to the recent decline in cryptocurrency markets. The market turmoil has highlighted the issue of crypto’s “increasing interconnectedness with the traditional financial system,” the regulator said. “It may have spill-over effects on important parts of traditional finance such as short-term funding markets,” the FSB stated, adding that global regulators need to supervise crypto markets in line with the principle of “same activity, same risk, same regulation.” As such, a stablecoin that enters the mainstream of the financial system needs to comply with “high regulatory and transparency standards, maintain at all times the reserves that preserve stability of value and meet relevant international standards,” the FSB stated. The FSB’s plan to propose recommendations for global unified stablecoin regulation is quite a challenging task, according to some industry executives. Related: Terra crash highlights stablecoin risk to financial stability: ECB Narek Gevorgyan, CEO at crypto data provider CoinStats, pointed out that the FSB has no lawmaking powers but promises to fit crypto assets into existing legal frameworks of participating member countries. In a statement to Cointelegraph, Gevorgyan questioned the regulator’s ability to embrace all regulatory approaches and protocols, stating: “Existing legal frameworks can help regulate the speculative aspects of the market and centralized exchanges, but how does the FSB plan to integrate the hundreds of existing and newly emerging protocols that are radically resistant to regulation by design?" The FSB previously outlined multiple risks stemming from the cryptocurrency industry in February this year. The authority was specifically concerned about the potential failure of certain stablecoins, the issue of data gaps in the crypto industry as well as the potentially threatening outcomes of the rapid growth of decentralized finance.

Perhaps the most important aspect of running any kind of pirate site or service is not getting caught. Being exposed by anti-piracy groups can mean legal trouble or in a worst-case scenario, a criminal referral. So how do the authorities track operators down and identify them? According to their own training sessions, it's all about OSINT. In some cases the process is very easy indeed. IPTVMeasures to tackle online piracy are often described as a game of whac-a-mole, in this case a game where pirates get bashed on the head only to pop up somewhere else – supply of movies, TV shows, live sports and music intact. From the average pirate’s perspective, the game is completely pointless – futile even. But for anti-piracy groups all around the world, engaging pirates in this irritating game is an important form of disruption. It’s the next best option given the 0% chance of killing all piracy and the greater than 0% chance they’ll switch to a legal service. The massive proliferation of pirate IPTV services in recent years is a big problem for many rightsholders. They’re able to annoy a few with ISP blocking but behind the scenes they’re also shutting a few down here, and a few down there. How they do that is rarely for public consumption but documents made available to TorrentFreak shine a little light on the basics. But first a short primer. OSINT – Open Source Intelligence At the lowest level, OSINT is available to all by simply gathering and processing data found using a search engine. In the world of OSINT, however, search engines represent only a handful of tools in an extremely large toolbox. When these tools are combined and harvested data is processed effectively, it’s possible to obtain worrying levels of information on all but the most hardened targets. The screenshot below shows just some of the tools listed by OSINT Framework but even this selection barely scratches the surface, especially if we include the associated skills needed to effectively gather and then correlate data. osint framwork When it comes to online anti-piracy investigations, OSINT tools and techniques can feel almost tailored for the task at hand. Any single piece of information about a site operator (such as a domain name, IP address, or email address) has the potential to expose a person’s online footprint. And since today’s online lives tend to be inextricably entwined with those enjoyed offline, it’s not hard to see where things can end up. IPTV – Investigation Examples In 2021, a project funded by the European Union/EUIPO gave a presentation in Asia that focused on the investigation of various players in the illegal IPTV ecosystem. The chart below lists everything from content providers, aggregators and developers, to money and ‘subscription mules’ – otherwise known as ‘resellers’. iptv ecosystem One interesting section concerns server devices known as ‘transcoders’. Video streams are sent to these servers from external sources (live TV or IP streams) and then transcoded/converted into multiple streams for delivery to multiple users’ viewing devices, usually via other networking infrastructure. The specific model mentioned in the slides (TBS8520) can be managed using a system called ‘Kylone’ which is accessible using a web browser. So, when the investigators searched for ‘Kylone’ using ‘ZoomEye‘ (an OSINT search engine for the ‘Internet of Things’) the system was able to provide information on more than 141 transcoders. (Note: Using Shodan is also an option) hunting transcoders Knowing where these servers are located is useful information for obvious reasons. An IP address (such as the first result in the chart above) has the potential to lead to a hostname or even a physical location using simple tools. (Note: Hosting companies, including the one in the example, may have no idea a customer is involved in illegal activities and, in any event, the customer in question is probably long gone) Ulango.TV: A Lesson in How To Get Caught In January 2020, we discovered that the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment had taken down Ulango.tv, an ‘IPTV solution’ offering thousands of live channels through an app. As far as we’re aware, ACE still hasn’t claimed responsibility but there’s no doubt they took it down or were involved in some way. According to slides in the EU/EUIPO presentation, cracking the case was simplicity itself. Armed with the site’s domain name (ulango.tv) and a WHOIS service, the investigators were able to obtain an IP address and the details of the company hosting the server. Next they created a map of the ulango.tv site using this tool, which produced a list of external sites the .tv domain linked to. That included a link to a Twitter account and another piece of the puzzle. Turning then to Hunter.io, a very powerful service for email-related investigations, they searched for the Ulango.tv domain and found an email address connected to it. At this point they appear to have used a little bit of skullduggery. Using the services Fakemail and Fake Person Generator they made an account on Ulango.tv with bogus information. Obviously, there are reasons investigators don’t want to expose themselves in situations like these since that could be counterproductive. ulango fake As the slide shows, the next step was to move towards a purchase of the site’s premium service for the princely amount of two euros. Then, after clicking the ‘checkout’ button, they were given the option to pay by credit card or bank transfer. Out of necessity an IBAN number was provided along with the name of the account holder, a name that had also appeared earlier in the investigation. It wasn’t difficult but it appears to have been effective. IPTV Investigation Using Multiple Tools Finally, the slides detail another investigation but since our checks indicate the platform is still live, we don’t intend to name it here. Instead, we’ll simply walk through the steps. Using the site’s domain name, investigators used Viewdns.info to conduct a WHOIS search to reveal the name of the domain registrant. Armed with that name they conducted a reverse WHOIS search, which displays other domains registered by the same person. In total, these steps turned up a name, an email address, a potential physical address and 10 additional domains, mostly connected to pirate IPTV services. The next step was to load up the main domain and view its source using a regular browser. By searching that source code for the term ‘UA-‘, they were able to find the site’s Google Analytics ID. By conducting a Reverse Google Analytics search, other sites using the same ID were revealed and connected to the first site. Then it was a matter of attempting to pay for a subscription at the first site and noticing that payment was being processed by another. That site was (and still is) presented as a legitimate business and as such is incorporated as a limited company in the UK. All limited companies in the UK have a listing at Companies House (another great OSINT resource) and a search there gave up the name of the director (a foreign national), a date of birth, and an address in London. The latter is a known virtual office and the home of many people who prefer not to give up their real address. At this point the slides reveal no more so it’s unclear whether the investigation ended there or is still ongoing. The sites in question appear to be up so for educational and entertainment purposes only, we’ll see if the case can be cracked using the incredible capabilities of Maltego and Spiderfoot. These tools allow users to automate their OSINT queries and investigations but such a short description does them both a huge disservice. They both have a free option so there’s no excuse for not giving them a try, preferably in a virtual machine and certainly behind a VPN, especially in the case of the latter.